DISC 

A  Worthy  New  Era 
Program  For  Foreign 


Missions 


ROBERT  E.  SPEER 


Address  delivered  at 
STONY  BROOK  CONFERENCE 
July,  1919 


The  Board  of  Foreign  Missions 
of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  U.  S.  A. 
156  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York 


A  WORTHY  NEW  ERA  PROGRAM 

FOR  FOREIGN  MISSIONS. 

A  really  worthy  New  Era  Program  for 
foreign  missions  would  be  nothing  less  than 
an  effort  to  determine  and  to  do  our  whole 
foreign  missionary  duty.  If  it  is  a  five 
year  program  which  is  contemplated  the 
right  way  to  arrive  at  it  would  be  first  to 
decide  if  possible  upon  our  whole  obligation 
and  then  to  determine  how  much  of  this 
whole  obligation  could  be  undertaken  and 
accomplished  in  five  years.  It  is  easy  in 
such  discussions  to  draw  up  mathematical 
statements  of  calculated  duty  and  these  are 
not  without  their  value,  but  let  any  one  try 
to  apply  such  modes  of  statement  to  the 
Apostolic  Church  and  its  work  and  he  will 
realize  how  inadequate  and  irrelevant  they 
may  be.  One  Saint  Paul  is  worth  a  whole 
arithmetic. 

And  yet  if  duty  is  to  be  done  in  a  real 
world  it  must  be  capable  of  being  stated. 
There  are  four  terms  in  which  it  may  be  ex¬ 
pressed.  These  can  not  confine  the  free 
action  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  but  they  can 
unfold  the  lines  of  human  obedience. 

1.  A  worthy  New  Era  Program  can  be 
stated  in  geographical  terms.  The  foreign 
mission  fields  of  our  Church  fall  in  six 
great  areas,  in  each  of  which  there  is  need 
for  lateral  expansion. 

(1)  Latin  America.  We  are  at  work  in 
six  Latin  American  lands,  Mexico,  Guate¬ 
mala,  Colombia,  Venezuela,  Chile,  and  Bra¬ 
zil.  By  the  new  plans  allocating  respons¬ 
ibility  for  the  work  in  Mexico  to  the  differ¬ 
ent  Boards,  we  are  made  responsible  with 
the  Southern  Presbyterians  for  all  the  work 
in  eight  great  states  south  of  Mexico  City. 
There  are  no  other  strong  church  missions 
in  Guatemala  and  Venezuela,  and,  with  the 


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exception  of  one  station  of  independent 
workers  in  Colombia,  that  great  field  is  left 
wholly  to  us.  The  Methodist  and  Presby¬ 
terian  Missions  divide  Chile  ,and  in  the  im¬ 
mense  states  of  central  and  southern  Brazil 
alloted  to  us  we  are  almost  wholly  alone. 
Matto  Grosso  is  a  state  the  size  of  Texas, 
with  more  live  stock  than  Texas  and  with 
room  for  the  population  of  an  empire.  From 
Bahia  our  missionaries  itinerate  westward 
from  the  Atlantic  Ocean  to  the  Andes 
Mountains,  across  a  territory  as  far  as  from 
New  York  to  Omaha.  In  this  Latin  American 
area  there  ought  to  be  at  least  six  new 
stations  in  immediate  contemplation.  The 
doors  are  wide  open  and  the  heart  of  Latin 
America  is  friendly  to  us  and  will  grow 
more  friendly  if  we  are  just  and  brotherly 
and  self-controlled  in  our  political  and  com¬ 
mercial  relations  with  Mexico  and  all  our 
other  Southern  neighbors- 

(2)  Africa.  Our  mission  in  Western 
Africa  is  in  the  territory  which  belonged  to 
Germany  and  is  now  in  the  possession  of 
France.  The  Peace  Treaty  provides  as 
follows  with  regard  to  the  German  missions 
in  Africa  and  elsewhere: 

“The  Allied  and  Associated  Powers 
agree  that  where  Christian  religious  mis¬ 
sions  were  being  maintained  by  German 
societies  or  persons  in  territory  belonging 
to  them,  or  of  which  the  government  is 
entrusted  to  them  in  accordance  with  the 
present  Treaty,  the  property  which  these 
missions  or  missionary  societies  pos¬ 
sessed,  including  that  of  trading  societies 
whose  profits  were  devoted  to  the  support 
of  missions,  shall  continue  to  be  devoted 
to  missionary  purposes.  In  order  to  en¬ 
sure  the  due  execution  of  this  undertak¬ 
ing,  the  Allied  and  Associated  Govern¬ 
ments  will  hand  over  such  property  to 
boards  of  trustees  appointed  by  or  ap- 


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proved  by  the  Governments  and  composed 
of  persons  holding  the  faith  of  the  mis¬ 
sion  whose  property  is  involved. 

“The  Allied  and  Associated  Govern¬ 
ments,  while  continuing  to  maintain  full 
control  as  to  the  individuals  by  whom  the 
missions  are  conducted,  will  safeguard 
the  interests  of  such  missions. 

“Germany,  taking  note  of  the  above 
undertaking,  agrees  to  accept  all  arrange¬ 
ments  made  or  to  be  made  by  the  Allied 
or  Associated  Governments  concerned  for 
carrying  on  the  work  of  the  said  missions 
or  trading  societies  and  waives  all  claims 
on  their  behalf.” 

In  accordance  with  this  provision,  it  ap¬ 
pears  to  be  the  purpose  of  France  to  exclude 
the  German  missionaries  from  Cameroun. 
In  that  case  the  great  work  of  the  Gossner 
and  Basle  missions  will  have  to  be  taken 
over  until  their  readmission,  by  the  French 
Evangelical  Church  or  by  ourselves.  .That 
will  mean  a  great  growth  of  our  work  north¬ 
ward  in  addition  to  the  steady  development 
which  should  be  required  interiorwards. 

(3).  Japan  and  Chosen.  The  need  of 
Christianizing  Japan  becomes  every  year 
more  clear  and  urgent.  The  immense  power 
for  good  of  a  Christian  Japan  and  the  im¬ 
mense  power  for  evil  of  a  pagan  Japan 
constitute  an  appeal  and  a  warning  to  the 
Christian  Church.  The  Japan  mission  wants 
to  be  able  to  occupy  adequately  its  great 
field  in  central  and  western  Japan  and  in 
the  rapidly  developing  new  section  in  the 
Hokkaido.  The  Chosen  mission  wants  to 
cover  its  field  both  in  Chosen  and  in  Man¬ 
churia,  whither  the  Koreans  have  emigrated 
by  the  hundred  thousand.  And  such  mis¬ 
sions  want  to  occupy,  not  new  territory 
only,  but  accessible  and  unoccupied  regions 
of  the  life  and  thought  of  the  people  such, 

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for  example,  as  the  press  in  Japan,  which 
reaches  the  whole  nation  and  through  which 
an  efficient  newspaper  evangelism  would 
touch  millions  of  people  who  will  never 
hear  a  preacher. 

(4)  China.  There  are  seven  missions  of 
our  Church  in  China,  two  in  the  north, 
North  China  and  Shantung;  three  in  the 
center,  Central  China,  Kiangan  and  Hunan; 
and  two  in  the  south.  South  China  and 
Hainan.  Two  new  stations  have  been  asked 
for  for  four  years  and  should  be  opened  at 
once  in  Shouchou  in  Anhwei  Province  and 
in  the  Lien  Chow  peninsula  in  Kwang-tung 
just  opposite  the  Island  of  Hainan.  Nearly 
one-third  of  our  whole  foreign  missionary 
staff  is  in  China,  but  one-fourth  of  the  popu¬ 
lation  of  the  world  is  there,  and  this  gener¬ 
ation  should  see  the  outposts  of  the  Chris¬ 
tian  Church  established  in  every  city  of 
China  which  should  be  occupied  by  foreign 
missionaries. 

(5)  The  Philippine  Islands  and  Siam.  The 
two  are  not  grouped  together  arbitrarily. 
Their  similarities  are  significant  and  their 
dissimilarities— free  peoples  Doth  of  them, 
though  Siam  is  the  most  absolute  govern¬ 
ment  in  the  world  and  its  people  slow  to 
use  their  liberty.  Almost  all  of  the  Visavan 
group,  save  part  of  Panay  and  Occidental 
Negros  and  all  of  the  southern  section  of 
Luzon  below  Manila — the  whole  heart  of 
the  Philippines  have  fallen  to  our  respons¬ 
ibility.  The  central  points  have  been 
touched,  but  the  network  of  occupation 
needs  to  be  doubled.  And  in  Siam  are  some 
of  our  largest  untouched  obligations.  Of 
the  eighteen  provinces  of  Siam,  which  is 
left  to  us  as  our  exclusive  field,  only  six 
are  entered  with  mission  stations,  and  north 
of  Siam  in  Burma  and  southern  China  are 
millions  of  the  Tai  people,  among  whom  a 
new  and  efficient  mission  should  be  at  once 
established. 


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(6)  India,  Persia,  and  Syria.  Here  is 
nearly  another  quarter  of  the  population  of 
the  world.  In  India  there  are  scores  of  dis¬ 
tricts,  each  needing  its  own  staff,  and  there 
are  whole  levels  of  population  now  ductile, 
and  to  be  won  or  lost  within  a  decade.  In 
Persia  a  new  mission  should  be  developed 
from  Meshed,  which  would  reach  Turkestan 
and  Afghanistan,  and  another  one  in  south¬ 
western  Persia  which  would  cover  now  un¬ 
touched  tribes.  The  ravages  of  the  war 
must  be  repaired  in  Azerbaijan,  where  the 
Urumia  station  has  been  destroyed,  and  in 
western  and  central  Persia  three  new  sta¬ 
tions  should  be  developed.  The  Syria  mis¬ 
sion  calls  for  an  extension  ot  its  work  north 
and  westward  to  embrace  Aleppo  and  Mar- 
din  and  to  reach  onward  to  join  the  West 
Persia  work  at  Mosul  and  the  Dutch  Re¬ 
formed  work  at  Bagdad. 

Here  there  are  calls  for  lateral  extension 
demanding  the  opening  of  three  or  four  new 
missions  and  a  score  of  new  stations.  And 
these  are  not  far  away  calls  nor  conjured 
up  needs.  For  years  the  missions  have  been 
urging  these  advances.  They  demand  their 
place  in  a  worthy  New  Era  Program. 

2.  A  worthy  New  Era  Program  must  be 
stated  also,  and  most  of  all,  in  terms  of 
men  and  women. 

Twelve  years  ago,  when  the  men  of  our 
Church  sought  to  face  our  full  foreign  mis¬ 
sionary  responsibility  in  the  Omaha  Con¬ 
vention,  they  estimated  that  there  would 
be  need  of  4,000  men  and  women.  That 
meant  quadrupling  the  present  staff.  For 
the  next  five  years  it  would  not  be  too 
much  to  propose  that  the  staff  should  be 
doubled  if  a  really  worthy  program  is  to 
be  carried  through.  We  have  now  1364 
missionaries.  In  1896  there  were  668.  In 
other  words  it  took  23  years  to  double  the 
staff  of  668.  Is  five  years  too  short  a  time 
in  which  to  double  the  staff  of  1919?  The 


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China  missions  asked  last  year  for  213  new 
missionaries;  the  India  missions  for  76;  the 
Persia  missions  are  asking  for  66.  In  June, 
1919,  at  the  time  of  the  New  Missionaries’ 
Conference,  the  following  cablegram  was 
received  from  Tabriz; 

“Send  this  summer  four  evangelistic 
men,  five  women,  two  educationally 
trained  men,  two  women,  one  trained 
nurse,  one  agricultural  man,  one  short 
term  woman,  two  men  teachers,  (addi¬ 
tional  to  Labaree,  Coan,  Wilson,  McKin¬ 
ney),  latter  evangelistic  not  educational. 
Opportunities  unprecedented.” 

The  Japan  mission  asks  for  65  new  mis¬ 
sionaries  in  the  next  five  years.  There  are 
great  differences  in  responsiveness  in  differ¬ 
ent  fields  and  in  the  same  field  at  different 
times.  A  great  deal  depends  also  on  tne 
strength  of  the  native  forces.  They  are  the 
central  element  in  the  whole  problem.  Our 
task  is  not  to  send  out  and  support  from 
America  enough  foreign  missionaries  to 
evangelize  the  world.  It  is  to  plant  the  Gos¬ 
pel  as  a  living  power  in  each  land  and  race, 
and  let  it  work  out  through  the  people  of 
each  nation  by  its  own  divine  and  vital 
force.  It  is  to  the  initial  work  that  foreign 
missionaries  are  called,  and  for  our  Church’s 
foreign  missions  to  do  their  part  we  should 
doubtless  double  the  staff  in  five  years  and 
quadruple  it  in  ten. 

3.  A  worthy  New  Era  program  must  be 
stated  also  in  terms  of  agencies  and  equip¬ 
ment. 

The  first  agency  and  the  first  equipment 
is  the  foreign  missionary  himself,  but  be¬ 
yond  him  are  the  native  agencies  just  re¬ 
ferred  to.  There  are  now  6806  native 
preachers  and  teachers  and  other  workers 
connected  financially  with  the  missions,  and 
there  are  hundreds  more  who  are  employed 
by  the  self-supporting  churches.  Among 
these  men  are  some  of  the  ablest  and  most 

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devoted  Christian  men  in  the  world — 
Uemura  and  Ibuka  in  Japan;  Kil  in  Chosen, 
Ding  li  Meh  in  China;  Sirai  ud  Din, 
Mukerji,  and  Roy  in  India;  Alvaro  Reis, 
Pereira,  and  Erasmo  Braga  in  Brazil;  and 
scores  of  other  good  men  and  good  women. 
These  are  the  rich  fruitage  of  missionary 
work  in  the  past  and  the  surest  promise  of 
its  future.  Such  workers  should  be  multi¬ 
plied  in  a  far  greater  ratio  than  the  foreign 
missionaries. 

Besides  this  increase,  the  educational  and 
medical  and  literary  agents  should  be  in¬ 
creasingly  strengthened.  In  the  foreign 
field  we  are  maintaining  in  whole  or  in  part 
20  colleges  and  universities  and  92  high 
schools,  and,  in  addition,  not  less  than  15 
theological  seminaries,  6  medical  schools, 
and  agricultural,  engineering  and  industrial 
schools.  These  institutions  need  equipment 
and  endowment,  if  they  are  to  be  adequately 
and  solidly  established,  of  not  less  than 
$10,000,000  as  our  share  of  their  support. 
Our  79  hospitals  and  110  dispensaries  are 
caring  for  365,000  patients  annually.  We 
have  single  hospitals  in  America  which  care 
for  one-tenth  this  number  annually  and  re¬ 
quire  ten  times  the  entire  budget  of  all  the 
medical  work  of  the  Board.  The  new  con¬ 
ditions  which  are  setting  in  will  require  a 
trebling  of  the  expense  of  this  work  at  least. 
An  adequate  enlargement  of  the  work  would 
double  that  again.  And  the  call  for  an  in¬ 
crease  of  the  literature  agencies  swells  each 
year.  In  Japan  98  per  cent  of  the  children 
of  school  age  are  in  school,  and  the  whole 
population  will  soon  be  literate.  Christian¬ 
ity  ought  to  use  the  press  to  carry  Christian 
truth  into  every  home  in  Japan.  In  many 
Latin  American  lands  printed  matter  is  car¬ 
ried  postage  free  to  encourage  reading.  A 
half  million  a  year  would  be  a  modest  sum 
to  spend  on  the  press  and  the  publishing 
house  as  agencies  of  Christian  propaganda. 


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And  there  is  the  additional  property 
equipment  needed — missionaries  to  be 
housed  in  unsanitary  lands,  hospitals  and 
schools  and  churches  to  be  built.  The  mis¬ 
sions  are  asking  for  more  than  $10,000,000 
worth  of  new  property  in  the  next  five 
years. 

4.  And  now  in  terms  of  money  what  does 
all  this  mean? 

The  figures  which  have  been  submitted 
to  the  Executive  Commission  of  the  Gen¬ 
eral  Assembly  and  approved  by  its  Budget 
Committee  for  the  year  1920  are  as  follows: 

Missionaries  now  in  Service. $2, 000, 000 

150  additional  missionaries  an¬ 
nually  .  250,000 

Native  work  and  workers...  1,250,000 

New  property  .  1,867,759 

Higher  educational  endowment  1,169,833 

New  Stations  .  25,000 

New  Missions  .  200,000 

Administration  .  240,000 

Deficit  of  1919  .  468,538 

$7,462,130 

This  does  not  represent  nearly  all  that 
the  missions  are  asking  under  the  inspira¬ 
tion  of  the  hope  that  the  Church  now  in¬ 
tends  to  deal  adequately  with  its  foreign 
mission  task,  but  it  is  a  careful  and  temper¬ 
ate  requisition  for  the  opening  year  of 
a  worthy  New  Era  program  for  foreign 
missions. 

5.  Does  the  Church  now  intend  to  deal 
adequately  with  its  foreign  mission  task? 

The  present  conditions  which  we  confront 
call  us  to  do  so.  The  letter  which  the 
Board  addressed  to  the  New  Era  Commit¬ 
tee  in  setting  forth  the  budget  above,  men¬ 
tioned  some  of  these  conditions: 


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(1)  It  would  seem  from  our  experience 
this  year  that  we  will  be  able  to  find  a 
larger  number  of  missionary  candidates 
than  were  available  before  the  war,  and 
that  we  can  plan,  accordingly,  for  an  in¬ 
creasing  reinforcement  of  our  missions 
with  the  confidence  that  the  men  ana 
women  can  be  found. 

(2)  The  effects  of  the  war  on  the  non- 
Christian  people  are  still  impossible  of 
calculation.  We  can  already  see  evil  re¬ 
sults  as  well  as  good.  The  central  fact, 
however,  is  that  the  whole  mission  field 
is  more  open  and  accessible  than  it  has 
ever  been  and  that  even  in  the  Moham¬ 
medan  world  the  opportunities,  as  the 
West  Persia  mission  has  cabled,  are  un¬ 
precedented. 

(3)  It  seems  likely  that  the  Treaty  of 
Peace  most  unfortunately,  will  greatly 
curtail,  if  not  in  large  part  prevent,  con¬ 
tinuance  of  the  foreign  missions  of  the 
German  churches.  If  the  German  Chris- 
tions  are  not  allowed  to  carry  on  this 
work  for  the  present,  it  must  be  main¬ 
tained  for  them  by  other  Churches  until 
they  can  take  it  up  again.  This  will  in¬ 
volve  our  missions  in  enlarged  respons¬ 
ibilities  in  West  Africa,  Persia,  Syria,  and 
perhaps  in  China  and  India. 

(4)  The  element  of  exchange  is  more 
unfavorable  than  it  was  a  year  ago  and 
requires  the  Board  to  secure  a  large 
amount  of  American  gold  to  meet  obliga¬ 
tions  which  a  few  years  ago  could  be 
calculated  at  one-half  the  present  ex¬ 
change  rates.  In  addition  to  the  heavy 
exchange  loss  in  China  and  Persia  which 
continues,  the  yen  in  Japan  and  the 
rupee  in  India  have  both  advanced  in 
cost. 

(5)  The  cost  of  living,  of  travel,  of  sup¬ 
plies,  and  of  almost  all  other  items  of  ex¬ 
pense  have  increased  in  the  mission  fields 


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far  more  rapidly  even  than  in  America. 
Travel  and  freight  charges  should  of 
course  fall,  but  other  costs  are  likely  still 
further  to  increase. 

(6)  The  new  moral  responsibilities 
which  have  come  to  America  in  conse¬ 
quence  of  the  war,  the  absolute  need  ol 
inter-racial  sympathy  and  justice,  products 
of  the  missionary  enterprise,  if  the  League 
of  Nations  or  any  peaceful  international 
order  is  to  be  established,  the  clear  dem¬ 
onstration  of  the  Gospel  as  the  sole  sal¬ 
vation  for  the  peoples,  all  increase  the 
obligation  to  plan  the  foreign  Mission¬ 
ary  program  of  our  Church  with  courage 
and  faith. 

The  tradition  of  the  fathers  calls  to  us 
out  of  the  past  with  a  new  and  clear  insist¬ 
ence.  They  dared  to  plan  boldly  at  tne 
beginning  without  our  resources  at  home, 
without  our  opportunities  abroad.  They 
thought  in  terms  of  continents  and  of  all 
mankind,  and  the  Church  to  them  was  in 
the  world  for  the  purpose  of  world  evangel¬ 
ization.  This  was  their  normal  declaration 
in  the  General  Assembly  of  1847 — “The 
Presbyterian  Church  is  a  Missionary  So¬ 
ciety,  the  object  of  which  is  to  aid  in  the 
converson  of  the  world,  and  every  member 
of  this  Church  is  a  member  for  life  of  said 
Society  and  bound  to  do  all  in  his  power  for 
the  accomplishment  of  this  object.”  And 
in  1867  the  Assembly  declared  again — “This 
Assembly  regards  the  whole  Church  as  a 
Missionary  Society  whose  main  work  is  to 
spread  the  knowledge  of  salvation.”  What 
was  the  Church’s  business,  then  is  its  busi¬ 
ness  now.  It  is  worthy  of  recognition  as 
Christ’s  Church  just  so  far  as  it  marks  out 
for  itself  and  carries  through  a  worthy  pro¬ 
gram  of  obedience  to  the  missionary  pro¬ 
gram  of  our  Lord. 

ROBERT  F.  SPEER. 


November,  1919 


Form  2689 


